Historic WoodvillePreserving Woodville's Heritage

Letter to Friends of Historic Woodville

November 20, 2006

Dear Friends of Historic Woodville,

It is hard to believe that we are fast approaching the 10 year anniversary of Historic Woodville!
In early 1997, many of you supported our dreams of a designated National Register Historic District.
From that, your continued encouragement to preserve this historically and architecturally important
planter village has enabled us to achieve the following:

Move, restore and maintain St. Frances, for which we won a prestigious
Preservation North Carolina award.

Maintain a Woodville website with family genealogies, cemetery/church records,
censuses, maps, and diaries.

Move endangered family cemeteries to protected churchyards.

Place Historic Woodville markers on Main Street, Jack Branch Road, and HWY 11.

Acquire donated endangered properties - The old Woodville Supply is now being marketed
by Preservation North Carolina, and the beautiful Bazemore House is ¾ completed.

This year, we've written two grants to generate income for Historic Woodville; one for the maintenance
of St. Frances, and the other to finance opening St. Frances to visitors on weekends.

We're crossing our fingers on both. Meanwhile, Michael Stone - now living in Lewiston to write
a book - has volunteered to be available to show St. Frances. There is a sign on the door for visitors
to call him if they wish to go inside. He also has volunteered to water the trees on the
recently landscaped Bazemore property.

Two of our out-of- town supporters, Sissy Marshall and Norman Reu, very kindly donated a week
of their carpentry skills helping Bruce with the Bazemore house restoration this year. Other donations:
Liz Urquhart created our Historic Woodville brochure, and Mike Ruck printed for us.

We're requesting more volunteer work to help defray our formidable maintenance costs.
One immediate need is the maintenance of St. Frances churchyard. The mowing/trimming cost
for St. Frances & Bazemore house has averaged $2000/year, a huge bite from our struggling
coffers. We're hopeful that someone will volunteer this.

Until we are awarded grant money or volunteered time, we again ask for your kindness in
covering these & other (electric/insurance/maintenance) expenses. Your much appreciated
help is tax deductible and goes directly to our expenses, as our time is volunteered.

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season,
Molly and Vicki, co-directors